


Too Much Caffeine

by fullofcrazyness



Series: Spencer Reid's Caffeine Addiction [1]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, BAU as family, Caffeine Overdose, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Spencer drinks too much caffeine, Spencer needs a hug, Team as Family, he needs to stop drinking coffee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25595602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullofcrazyness/pseuds/fullofcrazyness
Summary: Sometimes coffee isn't the answer, especially when you drink sixteen cups of the stuff.I DON'T OWN THESE CHARACTERS
Series: Spencer Reid's Caffeine Addiction [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083758
Comments: 4
Kudos: 183





	Too Much Caffeine

“What cup number is that?” Emily asks Derek as Spencer walks out of the lounge with another cup of coffee.

“I’ve lost count.” Derek tells her. “Probably three or four though.”

“Should he be drinking that much?”

Derek just shrugs. “I have no idea.”

Emily frowns and goes into the lounge. Grabbing the instant coffee that they use she searches the nutritional info for caffeine contents.

“Ninety-six milligrams for eight ounces. Okay not bad.”

“What are you looking at?”

Emily turns around to see Rossi walking in.

She holds up the coffee bag. “Caffeine content.”

“Any specific reason?”

“Spencer has had a lot of coffee today.” Emily says. “I just want to know how much caffeine he’s consuming.”

Rossi nods. “Makes sense. That kid is going to be a jittery mess by the end of the day.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

The two chat for a few more minutes before heading back to work. When Emily sits down she notices that Spencer had already drank his coffee. How he drank it so fast was a mystery to her.

Shaking her head, she dismissed it and turned back to her computer. She lost herself in her work for a few hours along with the rest of her team. There was no shortage of paperwork around here.

What everyone on the team failed to notice was Spencer getting up almost every thirty minutes and coming back with more coffee.

Spencer was trying to concentrate on the file in front of him, but his head was pounding, and he was slightly nauseous. He reached to take a drink from his mug before he decided against it. He’d already had eight cups of the stuff today. And what his friends didn’t know is that he doubled the amount of instant coffee supposed to go into a mug. So, he’d really had sixteen cups of coffee. How much caffeine was that again?

“One thousand five hundred and thirty-six.” He muttered to himself. Then he remembered the two caffeine pills he’d taken that morning. “Almost two thousand.”

Maybe he’d had too much? His throat felt dry, and now that he thought about it so did his mouth.

He was pulled out of his thoughts as Hotch called them into the conference room for a new case.

Slowly he stood up, leaning against the desk as a wave of dizziness took over.

“Spencer?” came Emily’s voice.

“’M fine.” He mutters pushing off the desk, shakily walking towards the conference room, missing the worried look Emily sent Derek.

He basically collapsed into his chair in the room and watched as the others filed in.

“Okay we have a case in Tulsa Oklahoma where-” Penelope started.

Spencer’s head was aching something horribly. He was trying to pay attention, but he just couldn’t. He was dizzy and nauseous. His heart started beating faster in his chest and he took a deep breath, bringing a hand to his chest.

“-d? Reid?.” Came a distant voice.

“Spence!”

Spencer jumped and looked up to see his team staring at him.

“Sorry?” He asked, dropping his hand.

“What do you think of the unsub taking the victim’s fingernails?” Derek asks.

“Fingernails.” Spencer repeats. “Yeah um… the fingernails. They mean… mean that.”

“Reid?” Rossi asked eyeing him with concern. “Is everything okay?”

Spencer stood up, stomach lurching. “Yeah I’m… I’m fine. Just gonna…”

He stumbled to the corner where the trashcan was and fell in front of it bringing up the little that was in his stomach.

“Reid!” Came the shouts of his friends. 

He started to fall to the side, clenching his eyes shut. Someone’s hands caught him before he could hit the ground.

“Reid. Look at me.” Came a voice from above him. “Open your eyes Reid. Look at me.”

Spencer opened his eyes to see Hotch kneeling over him. “H’tch.” He slurred.

Hotch looked up at someone and said something but Spencer couldn’t concentrate enough to hear what was said. His eyes started closing again but someone was tapping his face. He opened his eyes and glared.

“St’p it.” He muttered, hands weakly raising to bat away the ones on his face. “’m fine.”

Hotch huffed. “Yeah sure, and you didn’t just collapse.” There was a hand on his forehead. “You’re burning up.” The hand moved to his neck and Hotch’s frown deepened. He looked up again. “Pulse is too fast, slightly irregular.”

Spencer groaned as he felt his arms start twitching. At this point he figured out what was happening. He had accidentally overdosed on caffeine. This was going to be fun.

He tried to catch Hotch’s eyes. “C’ffeine.” He muttered.

“What was that?” Rossi asked, face leaning over his own.

“C’ffeine. Too much.” Spencer managed to get out, he felt his body tightening up. This was going to be bad. “Ov’rdose.”

His two superiors looked to each other and then back down at him.

“Shit.” Was the unanimous thought of everyone in the room.

“How much did you have.” Hotch demanded.

Spencer gasped as one of his arms jerked. “One th’sand nine …. n’ thirty-six.”

“Spencer!” Came Emily’s appalled voice.

“Ambulance three minutes out.” Came Derek’s voice. “I told them about the caffeine overdose.”

Hotch was observing his subordinate and noticed that his limbs seemed to be twitching without his say. Fearing the worse he loosened Spencer’s tie and pulled it off and had Rossi push chairs and anything else out of the way.

“Reid.” He says looking down. Glassy eyes looked back at his. “Reid concentrate on me.”

Spencer nodded at him and tried to concentrate on his boss’s face. It was proving more difficult than he thought it would be. And so was breathing, he felt himself start to wheeze.

“In here!” Came a shout. Spencer winced and closed his eyes.

“Eyes open!” Came the loud voice of Rossi.

There were more people over him, attaching him to some monitors. An oxygen mask was placed over his face to help him breathe. The EMT’s were here.

“Let’s go!” One said, helping him get on the backboard. “On three, one, two, three!”

Spencer was lifted up and placed on a gurney before being quickly wheeled out of the conference room.

“What the hell just happened?” Derek asked the rest of the team.

“More importantly.” Rossi says. “How did the kid manage to drink that much coffee in.” He looked at his watch and his eyes widened. “Not even five hours?”

Hotch just shook his head. “Let’s get to the hospital, Garcia call the other team in.”

“On it, sir.” Penelope says shakily.

_Two hours later_

The team looked up as the doctor walked into the waiting room.

“Family of Spencer Reid?”

The team stood up and the doctor walked over.

“Well as you suspected, it was a caffeine overdose. Having consumed two caffeine pills this morning and then drinking fifteen hundred milligrams at work was the cause. Thankfully, he did not have a seizure, but his muscles were twitching. We gave him activated charcoal to neutralize what was in his stomach and a gastric lavage to get the rest out of the gastrointestinal tract. He’ll be okay, other than some dizziness, nausea, and the headache he reported ten minutes ago. We have him hooked up to and EKG just to monitor him for the time being, his heartbeat was a little shaky for a while but he’s fine now.”

The team collectively sighed in relief. Their resident genius was going to be okay.

“Can we see him?” Penelope asks hopefully.

The doctor nods. “This way.”

The team followed the man into a room where a pale Spencer was sitting on his bed, nasal cannula under his nose, and the EKG wires leading under his hospital gown.

“Spence.” JJ said walking over and pulling her friend into a hug.

When she pulled back Spencer looked at his team sheepishly.

“I’m sorry.” He says quietly.

“Just don’t do it again kid.” Rossi says gently, sitting in a chair next to Spencer’s bed.

Spencer shot him a small smile and nodded.

“I’m limiting you to two cups of coffee a day.” Hotch says. “Garcia will be keeping track with the cameras.”

“That reminds me, you only got up like seven or eight times.” Penelope says. “How did you manage to drink so much caffeine.

Spencer looked down and blushed.

“Reid.” Derek says looking at him, almost laughing. This kid was going to be the death of him.

“I may, or may not, put two cups worth of coffee into one.” He muttered, blush deepening.

“Spence!” JJ exclaims shocked, smacking his upper arm.

“Then you only get one cup a day.” Hotch says. “Or you drink two normal cups.”

Spencer nods. “Yeah I would rather not repeat today.”

“Neither do we.” Rossi smiles. “It was scary for all of us.”

“I’m sorry.” Spencer says again. “It really was an accident.”

“We believe you.” Emily sooths. “Just don’t do it again. Like Rossi says.”

“Promise.” Spencer smiles.


End file.
